As Jack scrolled through several similar images to try and find the best one, he noticed the same woman standing at the edge of each of the hospital group photos, half hidden behind the wall of the registry office... just watching. Jack would have put her down as a nosey passer-by if she hadn’t seemed so familiar to him.
He kept looking at her, allowing his mind to slowly find the memory he needed. Associated words popped into his mind, and he desperately tried to make sense of them: tall... long black hair... horses... children — no, not just children: orphans.
Julia Lawson!
The name hit him like a ton of bricks. Julia Lawson was one of the women who committed the biggest train robbery the UK had ever seen and, decades later, she’d finally got away with millions in cash. Because of him. He let her go. He let them all go. Not only that, but he also accepted some of the stolen cash and used it to buy the house they were now sitting in. Jack could hardly breathe, his rapid heart palpitations making him physically shake. He jumped up without waking anyone and grabbed himself a brandy which he drank far too quickly, the alcohol burning all the way down to his stomach. Julia Lawson. Julia Lawson...
Julia Lawson was one of the few people alive who could bring Jack’s world crashing down and put him behind bars. He had to find out why she was back. And why she was watching him.
Chapter 28
On Tuesday, life returned to normal. Jack kissed Maggie goodbye and she ran to work with a change of clothes in her backpack. Maggie had a locker at work where she left her uniform and work shoes, which gave her the freedom to run in whenever she felt the need — and after looking through all of the wedding photos and seeing herself next to some much younger, much more svelte nurses, she was feeling her age.
‘I’m not going to let myself go just because I’ve bagged my man,’ Maggie said, gently patting Jack’s stomach. Then she dashed off before he could spout some excuse about working long hours and eating on the run.
Once he was alone, Jack flicked the TV on. The last photo that he’d looked at the previous evening was still on the screen. Ridley being forced to give Jack some time off was now acting in his favour, but he had to find Julia Lawson fast, before Ridley expected him back on the Jenkins case.
For the life of him, Jack couldn’t figure why any of the women would risk coming back to the UK. But the more he thought about it, the more he realised that the only one who’d left something valuable behind was Julia. She’d left her children. The care home Julia had run looked after some of the most vulnerable kids in the north-west of England. She hid them from abusive parents and from violent lives. She gave them the respect they needed to understand that their lives actually meant something. She taught them that they were worthy of saving, worthy of a future and worthy of love. If she was back, it would be for one of them.
The problem Jack had was that many of the children from back then were under strict protection orders, so as soon as he started digging, his actions would show up. He wanted to remain below the radar so as not to have to explain why he was searching for a woman who, as far as the police were concerned, had gone to ground somewhere in Europe. Although he wanted to find Julia Lawson, it was certainly not his intention to start a trail that others could follow. Jack recalled three names of children who Julia had been particularly attached to: Sam, Suzie and Darren. He’d met each of them when he’d gone to her care home in Chester to interview her about the train robbery, but he never learnt any of their surnames.
Jack started his search with Julia; and with any child called Sam, Suzie or Darren, who was either sent to her from the Juvenile system, or who went into the Juvenile system after she disappeared aboard — it was a negative assumption to make, but an accurate one as many of the kids were indeed known to the police at some point. The dubious upbringings of these youngsters normalised things which should never be normal to a child — violence, abuse, crime. Jack found two boys from the Chester area named Samuel, and three named Darren... one of which immediately stood out. In November 2019, Darren Winstall, aged just 17, was found hanged in his room at the Juvenile Detention Centre. If this was the same ‘Darren’, then perhaps Julia came back for his funeral and stayed? There was a lengthy report detailing how Darren slowly retreated into his shell until he was nothing more than a mute, violent, pitbull of a boy who never let anyone get close to him. During his short stay in juvenile detention, Darren was visited numerous times by Daniel Karina, who Jack remembered being a carer at the home Julia ran. Daniel had seemingly tried to get Darren out of juvie and back into his care, but he’d failed. Darren had burnt too many bridges, meaning he had then been stuck in a system that saw him as a criminal rather than a damaged child.
Daniel Karina was still working in social care, and, from his annual DBS reports Jack was able to find his home address and contact phone number, but he couldn’t just call and ask if Daniel knew Julia was back in the UK. Nor could he ask for the surnames of Sam and Suzie. Daniel wouldn’t willingly give him any of that information. Whilst Jack pondered the best course of action, he absentmindedly searched the internet for Julia Lawson, Daniel Karina and Darren Winstall in the vain hope that something would pop up and trigger a lightbulb moment.
Sure enough, Daniel’s Facebook page was a mine of information. He was an avid photographer, posting snaps of his food, clothes, bike and, most importantly, his holidays. Daniel had posted discreet images of himself and Julia at Formby beach and nature reserve, which Jack immediately recalled was where they used to take the kids on holiday. These dated back as far as 2017, so weren’t useful, but Daniel’s more recent holiday snaps were.
In July 2020, as the country came out of lockdown, Daniel posted photos from Wales. He talked about an ‘old friend’, although he never gave them a name. A couple of the images were taken outside a rural property with horses roaming a field in the background. It was called Winstall Farm. Jack googled it and found the postal address. It was just outside Aberdovey in a small village called Cwmystwythe.
It was a five-hour drive, but he knew he had no choice. Once he was on the A40, he called Maggie, assuming she’d be furious that they hadn’t even been married a week and he was heading off to Wales. Instead, she launched into a moan about how she was now covering Wetlock’s surgery list because he had gone AWOL — something to do with his daughter. Maggie expected Tania had been off causing havoc somewhere again.
‘So long as she doesn’t come back to my house, offering my husband sex on a plate. Keep in touch, Jack. I’ll meet you on the sofa at nine for takeaway and wine.’
The bulk of the drive to Wales was motorway, giving Jack plenty of time to play out various scenarios surrounding Julia’s surprise return. Darren’s funeral did seem to be the most likely reason for her being back in a country where she was still in danger of being arrested and sent to prison for the rest of her life — she’d certainly risk her own freedom for one of her children and the fact that Jack was now heading to a farm possibly named after Darren supported his theory. But why had she been in London, at his wedding, watching him? That was deeply concerning to him.
Once Jack had crossed into Wales and begun hitting smaller country lanes, he began to rely on his sat nav to get him to Cwmystwythe. This was a stunning part of the world. Narrow, winding roads cut through rich green farmland, edged by drystone walls. The clouds created shadows that moved down the hillsides and through the valleys, changing the landscape from light green to dark green and back again. Occasionally, Jack would spot the ruins of a small stone building, which he presumed had belonged to long-ago farmers. Like much of rural Wales, there was an almost prehistoric feel to the place.